This one represents some of the most investigation that I've ever had to do to verify something. In the 1990s, the Alameda Barbie Club of California was pretty active, hosted their own mini conventions, and had a lot of "big name" members, including the late Glenn Offield. They were also known for their incredibly detailed mini convention dolls, mostly crated by Florence Chinn, who was friends with former Mattel designer Abbe Littleton and could have been an official Mattel designer in her own right. She was that talented.

One of their conventions, "Fall Into Barbie," was fairly well documented in an old issue of Miller's magazine, so that one has always been easy to identify, even if I missed the dolls on ebay a few years ago.

However the hardest one to ID was the "Barbie Through The Looking Glass" convention from 1995. The convention was sort of lost in the news of Offield's passing, along with several other events. So unless you were at that regional mini convention, no one really talked about it much and the official convention doll has been notoriously difficult to track down, mostly because everyone (including me) is looking for a custom Barbie as Alice doll, given the theme.

So when I kept seeing a "Barbie as the Queen of Hearts Goes Wild" doll on eBay, I questioned whether or not this could be the convention doll and no one could seem to tell me. So, I took a chance this spring and for a little more than I would normally pay, bought the "stuff" associated with this convention from a different seller. It included the convention book which had an interview with the doll designer. Her quote on the convention doll? "Don't always think of Alice."

So I didn't and with a little more research, discovered that The Queen of Hearts Gone Wild is, in fact, the convention doll for that regional mini convention. She's also far more detailed than most regional convention dolls I've seen. Her hair in the back is so intricately styled that I marvel at it every time.

Late last month, by sheer luck, I stumbled on an auction for the Mattel gift for that convention, a titian Cut & Style Barbie. I was lucky enough to beat out someone who just wanted to debox her and cut her hair. My feeling? Do that to a non-convention version and leave this one alone. I might have paid a little bit of a premium on her, but now (mostly) all of the pieces for that regional convention are back together. If anyone sees a Barbie sized flamingo croquet set, however, let me know. I still want that centerpiece.

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